Lewis Hamilton was forced to give up his chase of Nico Rosberg in Monaco after getting some debris in his eye.

In the closing laps, he lost some nine second to his teammate and came under threat from Daniel Ricciardo. Until then, he had been pushing Rosberg hard.

“I’ve never really had it before,” said Hamilton after his eye problem. “I kept making sure my visor was as closed as possible but I had quite a bit of wind coming in. I got close to Nico at one stage and, all of a sudden, I got a bit of debris in my eye, or some dirt, so I was driving with one eye, which is virtually impossible to do and so through the low-speed corners. I was trying to open up my visor to clear it up but it was just making it worse. Fortunately, I think with five laps to go it cleared up so I was able to stay ahead of Daniel.”

Regarding his fight with Rosberg, he said: “All the races have been very, very close but this weekend I think I had very good pace. I drove with all my heart and gave it all I could, fairly, and I feel like I drove fairly all weekend. So I leave today quite happy and I can go into the next race with even more energy and determination.

“Generally, there is a fierce battle between me and Nico and it will continue that way to I’m sure quite late in the season. Nico’s not had a single hiccup through the season so far. Obviously I had a car that didn’t finish in Melbourne but otherwise it’s still quite close, so I’m just going to keep my head up, keep pushing. I know the team are working hard for the both of us. The team can sometimes be in awkward positions, which they were yesterday, and their job is really to protect us both, and that’s what they did.”